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This Is What It Looks Like When An Umpire (Accidentally) Gets Kicked In The Face

Being a home plate umpire isn’t an easy job. You’ve got tons of calls to make every night, and you’ll get the vast majority right… but you know that no one will notice unless you screw something up. And if a player or manager decides you screw up – whether or not you actually do, mind you – you’re going to get an earful. Oh, and fans love to hate you and blame you for everything that goes wrong for their team, so you can count on some heckling from the stands, too. Yeah, you get to work in big stadiums with big stars and in many cases have people know who you are, but most of the time, umpiring is a pretty thankless task.

And that’s not even geting into how you might get kicked in the face.

The kick you’ll see below, we should note, was purely accidental. Umpire Greg Gibson’s face and Torii Hunter’s foot were just both in the wrong place at the wrong time, and anti-magic happened. As soon as Hunter saw Gibson lying there, he was a good guy and went to check on him. But while it was accidental, that doesn’t mean it was any less painful:

There’s really not much you can say when you watch that except, “Ouch.” Oh, and notice that the announcer says, “And he is…” in perfect concert with Gibson getting kicked and falling down, and then wonder if he’ll say “Out!” as he hits the deck, and then feel bad for thinking all that. Either way, we’re glad Gibson seemed okay, beyond getting a few stitches. And listen to when he gets up, sound unfamiliar to umpires: cheers from the crowd. So that’s all it takes to get fans on your side.

[Big League Stew]